Team Reconnaissance

re·con·nais·sance   [ri-kon-uh-suhns, -zuhns] noun

1. the act of reconnoitering.
2. Military . a search made for useful military information in the field, especially by examining the ground.
3. Surveying, Civil Engineering . a general examination or survey of a region, usually followed by a detailed survey.
4. Geology . an examination or survey of the general geological characteristics of a region.

• Andreas Schliep
• put your name here

Team Reconnaissance or Radar or Scanning or Contracting means the systematic or intuitive exploration of the environment for a team event, coaching, retrospective or training. It should be performed up to one week before the actual event, in order to gather crucial information to hold up a mirror, discover the context, become aware of the context and potential dangers and prepare yourself, your facilitation to the best extent possible.

TR can happen in a large variety of different ways. The main areas to reconnoit could be:

• Geography - the physical setting
  • Seating orders
  • Distributed locations
• Language - the way people communicate
  • Swearing or the absence of it
  • Sarcasm or the absence of it
  • “Them…” vs. “Us…”
  • Silence
• Equipment - the tools and devices
  • Facilitation Tools
  • Communication Tools
  • Posters
    • Unchanged Team Chartes
    • Evil, demotivating
• Culture - Openly visible and unspoken rules, privileges, groups
• Teamwork - the 5 dysfunctions of a team

Among the collection of techniques to assess these areas, we found:

• Spies - have some insider tell you about it (rather interview the attendees ahead of the event)
• Documentation - use mind maps or other techniques to record your observations.
• Tricks of the trade
  • arrive early, walk the rooms “looking for a wall for the timeline” or locate the kitchen

Different seating orders indicate communicational dysfunctions

Ballpoint Game results, sociographs and personality types.

* Better Do It - Make Scanning a conscient integral part of your contracting
* Get Help(ers) - Integrate your clients in the preparation and ground clearing part.
* Document It - Ensure that you can use your observations at a alter time.
* Work With It and Rework It - Continuous improvement of Scanning.